You glance at Uehara furtively, trying to work up the courage to approach her. Setting down a stack of files with a sigh, she looks up and meets your gaze. “Was there anything you wanted?” she asks with a nice smile, walking over to you instead.
“N-no, not really,” you murmur softly, turning your head away from Uehara and adjusting your glasses.
“Come now, don’t be shy. We’re all stuck together in this crappy place!” she laughs, slapping your back. You wince, your fingers crumpling up a sheet of paper that you had been holding. Noticing your uneasiness, Uehara apologizes quickly… though she remains where she is, standing uncomfortably close to you. Does this girl have no concept of physical boundaries?You try to clear your head and decide to move a bit further away from her, but your feet stop when she begins to speak.
“Say, Adachi-san, what did you do before coming here?”
You still haven’t remembered anything relevant about your past. What you do recall is common knowledge that surfaces in your mind when it is associated with something – it is a process that you imagine to be much like uncovering your memories gradually with a shovel. When you see a telephone, you know what it is for. From the very start, you know that this place, thanks to the furniture and design, is a hospital. You have seen the calendars on the wall which tell you that you are in 2014, and you do not remember anything off about that. You remember the events of note that have taken place in that year, and the year before. Of course, you do not remember anything of note involving yourself. Not your age, not your hobbies, not your work or your family or any of the barest details of your life before you woke up at this hospital.
So, you are unable to answer her question truthfully.
“I… I studied.” It seems like as good an answer as any, and since you have already lied about your name, it is a small step to take. Everyone has studied at least once in their life, right? “W-What about you?”
“Me? Oh, come on, I hope there’s nothing wrong with your memory, Adachi-san! I already introduced myself back there, in the lobby. Uehara Shizuka, seventeen years old, just your everyday, normal, cheerful high school girl!” She gives you a mock salute, her hazel eyes twinkling with good cheer. “But if you want more details, sure. Um… I was born on June 6th, my hobbies are lazing around the house and reading comics, my favourite food is mille-feuille, and my three sizes are-“
“Your three sizes are flat, Uehara,” calls out Sakimura, laughing.
As expected, Uehara is enraged and stomps towards him. You turn away, tuning out their friendly bickering…
You need to get back to the search.
***
After exhausting every piece of paper in the room, nothing else of interest turns up. Tokigawa throws up his hands in defeat. “It’s not in here. We’ve looked everywhere.”
“What about the security room?” Mori seems unfazed by the lack of results.
“I’ll talk to Midori when we get back,” replies Tokigawa.
Mori nods. Despite the clear fire hazard of smoking in a room full of paper, he is puffing away while leaning against a wall – not the blood-stained one – and checking his watch. Although the clocks on the wall are still pointed at twelve, your personal time pieces had begun ticking again. Even if you do not know the exact time at the moment, you can still find out how much time has passed since you woke up again. It’s now a little over an hour and a half since you first opened your eyes.
Suddenly, the voice of a female singer belting out a catchy pop ballad fills the air.
“Wait, sorry, that’s my ringtone!” Startled, Tokigawa fumbles inside his pocket and retrieves his phone. Someone is calling? But isn’t there no signal in here? “It’s… Midori?” Behind his spectacles, Tokigawa’s eyes widen. He answers the call hurriedly.
“Midori? Midori, is that you? How did you manage to get through?”
Everyone else looks on in silence as Tokigawa’s expression grows cloudy and confused.
“Midori? Hello?”
You can hear the crackle of the speaker, though it is too far for you to make out what Tokigawa is hearing.
“Midori?”
Tokigawa lowers his phone, staring at the screen. His face is pale. Pressing his thumb against the display, he redials the number and lifts the phone to his ear again. This happens again three times before he gives up.
“Hey, uh, Tokigawa-san, what did she say?” asks Sakimura.
“N-no, she didn’t really say anything,” mumbles Tokigawa. “Look, let’s get back to the cafeteria.”
No one disagrees.
***
Arriving at the cafeteria in a hurry, you find that Mitsuki, Sakaki, Sawada and Amanozaki have made themselves at home. The tables are piled high with junk food and drinks. “Ah, you guys are back!” waves Sawada cheerfully. “Good work!”
“Have Midori and the others returned?” asks Tokigawa urgently.
“Ah, you mean Miss Okuyama and her group? Aren’t they right behind you?” Sawada replies, looking puzzled. “Wait…”
Tokigawa whirls around quickly. True enough, Okuyama’s group is there: Taketatsu, Maeda and Kayano. Okuyama herself is nowhere to be seen, however. Tokigawa stands there quietly, looking beyond the three of them, as if hoping Okuyama will appear from behind soon enough.
“What is it? Why is everyone staring at us?” asks Maeda tetchily, glaring back.
“Maeda-san, where is Okuyama-san?” Mori is the first to respond, before Tokigawa can even speak.
“Midori-san? She was right… behind… eh?” Turning around, Maeda scans the way she came. Raising her voice, she calls out, “Midori-san?”
“Where did you last see her?” Mori follows up again, looming closer to the three of them.
“Mori-san, please be polite,” replies Taketatsu calmly. “As far as I know, she was with us right until you pointed it out. I was keeping my eye on the path straight ahead and leading the way, but I heard her footsteps following us.”
“I-I was talking with Midori-san and Rina-san on the way back,” Maeda says, slightly upset.
“She said she had something stuck in her shoe, and after slowing down a little she was just walking behind us,” says Kayano apologetically. “She wasn’t really participating in the conversation then so I didn’t pay too much attention to it. I’m sorry.”
“Where was that?” Tokigawa has stepped in front of Mori, a look of concern etched onto his brow.
“Just… after going up the stairs, I think? It was just seconds ago… I… I think?” Kayano’s arms are folded – she appears to be as perplexed as anyone else at the situation.
“I didn’t see her behind you while the three of you were walking here,” Sakaki speaks up, scowling. You crane your neck slightly, trying to see things from Sakaki’s angle. From here, you can see past the corridor to where the stairways and lifts are. If he did not see Okuyama with them, she probably did not ascend the stairs to the ground floor together with the other three.
“Kukukukuku…” Amanozaki’s distinctive laugh floats from the back of the cafeteria, where she is hunched over with an open bag of potato chips. “I warned you…”
“Shut up.” Tokigawa growls at her, a look of disgust on his face. Gripping the bag of chips tightly, Amanozaki shies back, cowed by his expression.
“H-hey, everyone? Let’s calm down, alright?” Sawada stands up, trying to put on a brave smile. “The important thing to do right now is to find Okuyama-san.”
Taking a deep sigh, Tokigawa gives him a nod. “Mori-san, I’m going to look for her. Can you come with me?”
“Sakaki, from this angle, you saw them walking in from the moment they climbed up the stairs, right?” asks Mori, echoing your previous guess. The author nods, and Mori gives him a grunt of satisfaction. “Alright. Then we should focus the search on the basement levels. We should all go together.” Throwing a glance at the fortune teller crouched at the back of the room, he calls out authoritatively, “Even you, Amanozaki. Come on.”
***
The twelve of you descend into the basement level of the hospital. It is as brightly lit as anywhere else in the hospital – you had been expecting some dark, dank cellar for some reason. According to the three who had been exploring the level, the service corridors on sublevel two have been sealed with metal shutters; you would not be able to get through to the other buildings until they were unlocked. The search for Okuyama Midori begins…
***
1:40
A. You investigate the security center on the second basement level.
B. You investigate the maintenance rooms on the second basement level.
C. You investigate the male toilet on the second basement level.
D. You investigate the female toilet on the second basement level.
E. You investigate the laundry on the first basement level.
F. You investigate the kitchens on the first basement level.
G. You investigate the male showers on the first basement level.
H. You investigate the female showers on the first basement level.
I. You do not do any investigating at all, instead opting to just lounge around at the staircase.
